On Thursday November 26th TY Food & Hospitality Students headed over the mountains to Kenmare for a food tour with Karen Coakley of “Kenmare Foodie” fame. Karen runs her own food tour company in Kenmare, Killarney and the Beara Peninsula.
Karen and her assistant Justine hopped on the bus in the Square in Kenmare and it was off to our first stop, Lorge Chocolatier where our students had the opportunity to meet Benoit Lorge, owner and founder of this award winning business. Students heard how Benoit started out as a pastry chef in the Sheen Falls Hotel and is now supplying shops all over Ireland including our own Field’s in Skibbereen. David his assistant demonstrated how to temper chocolate along with how to line and fill the moulds. Benoit talked about where he sources his chocolate, how he has coped with the huge price hike in his raw materials and our students got to sample three of his handmade gourmet chocolates. Benoit even created his own take on the Dubai Chocolate Bar – the Kenmare Chocolate Bar! We will never look at a simple bar of chocolate the same way again – bonus, we even got to keep our very fetching hats!!!
Back on the bus into Kenmare town where we split into two smaller groups and walked to our next destination the bakery which supplies all the baked goods for the much-loved Maison Gourmet Café in the heart of Kenmare. Here we met the owner and founder Emma. Originally from France, Emma and her husband came to visit Kenmare as two of her three sons were working in the Park Hotel and the family never left. Emma spoke passionately about sourcing ingredients to make their legendary croissants. We learned about the difference between French & Irish butter – both have their jobs in the bakery. Students got to work rolling their own croissant, they got the hang of it straight away. Lucky for us Emma had some freshly baked croissants for all to take with us – devine, all those layers!
Then it was a short walk across the street to meet Tom Crean’s granddaughter Aileen and her husband Bill who told us their fascinating life story (Netflix are definitely going to make a movie of this!). Aileen a native of Kenmare ran Darcy’s a successful restaurant for many years before pivoting to set up the award winning Tom Crean Micro Brewery in more recent years. This brewery is bucking the trend in terms of expansion and success, including a very interesting product – Hop Infused Sparkling Water. The real story here is how they run their business taking sustainability to another level while honouring the memory of Aileen’s grandfather, Tom Crean. I won’t ell you the story of their epic family adventure to the Artic to retrace Tom’s expedition – it’s a story you’ll have to hear from the lady herself – well worth a visit. On departure we asked Bill for some advice for our budding young entrepreneurs - “Follow your heart but have someone with a good head close by”. Sound advice indeed.
Inspired by their story we moved on to another Bakery, this time a what could be described as the new kid on the block in Kenmare but equally a business that has been very successful since its inception during Covid – Bean & Batch Bakery which supplies the award winning Bean & Batch Café. We met owners Jamie & Brendan, who started out as a carpenter and publishing executive but who were both passionate about good coffee and sandwiches and doing this well is what they have built their business on. Open at 6am to 5pm everyday, the café has carved a place in the heart of the community in Kenmare. Both spoke in particular about hard work, connecting with people and their stories, something we heard more than once that day. Inspirational!
Then it was off to Bean & Batch Café for lunch where we got to taste their infamous sausage rolls and cinnamon rolls. We can see what all the fuss is about. Karen Coakley our tourguide then spoke to our students about her successful business, how she developed this while being a stay at home and has fine tuned it to the product we experienced that day. Another reminder that life does not always go in straight lines.
So much positivity and inspiration – there was nothing for it only a quick bit of shopping (so many lovely independent shops) before heading back over the mountains – leaving behind Neidín as the song goes, but certainly not forgetting the wonderful and inspiring people we met.
